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Thor A. Wagner, MD

Thor A. Wagner, MD

"My research is inspired by patients that I meet and directed at the problems that they face. There are exciting opportunities to adapt current biotechnology to help our patients' needs, and it's great motivation to know that the research we do has the potential to directly benefit our patients."

Thor Wagner, MD: Assistant Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases. Dr. Wagner's research is focused on pediatric HIV infection, which accounts for 15% of all HIV deaths.

My primary interest is understanding chronic HIV infection during antiretroviral therapy. Specifically, why doesn't antiretroviral therapy eradicate HIV infection? Is there ongoing viral replication? Is there proliferation of cells with viable proviral HIV? Can we identify the remaining infected cells? Is immune tolerance to HIV a barrier to curing HIV? Answers to these questions should help design new treatment strategies more likely to cure HIV.
My other research interest is improving infectious disease diagnostics in low resource settings. Specifically, I am working to develop a point-of-care diagnostic test for infant HIV. Currently there is no simple test to diagnose infants with HIV, and 50% of HIV-infected children die before they can be diagnosed. To accomplish this we are utilizing state-of-the-art monoclonal antibody screening technology to optimize the sensitivity of immunoassays to detect HIV antigens.

My research is focused on pediatric HIV infection, which accounts for 15percent of all HIV deaths.

My primary interest is understanding chronic HIV infection during antiretroviral therapy. Specifically, why doesn't antiretroviral therapy eradicate HIV infection? Is there ongoing viral replication? Is there proliferation of cells with viable proviral HIV? Can we identify the remaining infected cells? Is immune tolerance to HIV a barrier to curing HIV? Answers to these questions should help design new treatment strategies more likely to cure HIV.

My other research interest is improving infectious disease diagnostics in low resource settings. Specifically, I am working to develop a point-of-care diagnostic test for infant HIV. Currently there is no simple test to diagnose infants with HIV, and 50percent of HIV-infected children die before they can be diagnosed. To accomplish this we are utilizing state-of-the-art monoclonal antibody screening technology to optimize the sensitivity of immunoassays to detect HIV antigens.

Detection of HIV-1 drug resistance in women following administration of a single dose of nevirapine: comparison of plasma RNA to cellular DNA by consensus sequencing and by oligonucleotide ligation assay.Journal of clinical microbiology
, 2010 May
: 48(5)1555-61

Association between detection of HIV-1 DNA resistance mutations by a sensitive assay at initiation of antiretroviral therapy and virologic failure.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America
, 2010 May
: 50(10)1397-404

Detection of HIV-1 drug resistance in women following administration of a single dose of nevirapine: comparison of plasma RNA to cellular DNA by consensus sequencing and by oligonucleotide ligation assay.Journal of clinical microbiology
, 2010 May
: 1555-61

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